Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watchful eyes of military police during in-processing to the temporary detention facility at Camp X-Ray of Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in this January 11, 2002 file photograph (Reuters) / Reuters

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture lambasted the United States for continually obstructing his requests to visit prisons where 80,000 people sit in solitary confinement and to freely speak with inmates at Guantanamo Bay.

Juan E. Méndez said Wednesday that he has attempted for more than
two years to visit and check conditions at American prisons,
including some of the nation’s most notorious maximum security
facilities. He added that UN human rights officials have asked
for access to Guantanamo prisoners since 2004.

"On the federal level, I want to go to ADX in Florence,
Colorado and to the Manhattan Correctional Center," Méndez
said during a news briefing, Reuters reported.

"Those are where people accused of terrorism are taken or
where they serve their term."

About 80,000 people are held in solitary confinement in US
prisons, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Méndez remarked on the routine use of the tactic in the US
court-prison system.

"Solitary confinement seems to be a permanent feature at both
the pre-trial level and post-conviction,” Méndez said.

In October, the United Nations Committee Against Torture
chastised the US for its excessive use of solitary
confinement.

"The numbers are staggering but even worse is the length of
terms...It is not uncommon for people to spend 25, 30 years and
even more in solitary confinement," Méndez said.

Though solitary in the US is “somewhat moderated” at 22
or 23 hours per day -- as inmates are allowed some materials to
occupy their time, including reading and writing utensils --
Méndez said it’s not enough.

"But it's still no meaningful social contact," he said.

While federal officials have responded to his requests for access
to US prisons, state prison authorities have ignored his pleas in
places such as California, New York, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

"In one of my last conversations, they said that federal
prisons were unavailable. I cannot accept an invitation to say go
to a California prison if the federal prisons are off-limits to
me."

In 2011, Méndez called for a ban on solitary confinement, saying
it was used to break down an inmate’s psychological will.

“Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown,
Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit… whatever the name,
solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment
or extortion technique,” Méndez said at the time.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is currently
representing inmates at California's Pelican Bay Security Housing
Unit supermax prison who are challenging the prison’s
solitary policy.

“More than 500 Pelican Bay SHU prisoners have been isolated
under these devastating conditions for over 10 years, more than
200 of them for over 15 years; and 78 have been isolated in the
SHU for more than 20 years,”according to CCR.

In addition, US prisoners with documented mental health problems
are often put in solitary confinement for long periods of time,
according
to the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’
Association.

One of the most notoriously-harsh prisons in the US, New York
City’s Rikers Island, recently
banned solitary confinement for all inmates under the age of 21.

Guantanamo Bay

At the notorious US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
around 122 detainees remain locked away far from the public eye,
as the majority of them have been held at the facility without
trial or charge.

Méndez said he has been offered certain terms attached to a Gitmo
visit, yet he, like his predecessor in 2004, declined to accept
based on stipulations he deemed too narrow.

"The invitation is to get a briefing from the authorities and
to visit some parts of the prison, but not all, and specifically
I am not allowed to have unmonitored or even monitored
conversations with any inmate in Guantanamo Bay."

The Guantanamo
prison was first opened following the attacks of September
11, 2001, to house suspected jihadist militants with ties to
Al-Qaeda. It eventually became an international symbol of human
rights abuses.

In 2014, the Obama administration made progress in
releasing low-level detainees, finding host nations for 28
prisoners – the highest number of transfers from the prison in
one year since 2009. That year, President Obama first took office
after vowing to close the facility, where many detainees who
remain today have been kept for well over a decade without being
charged or tried.

"I’m going to be doing everything I can to close”
Guantanamo, President Obama told CNN in an interview aired on
Dec. 21, echoing sentiments he has expressed often since taking
office.

Congress, he continues to insist, is to blame for the prison’s
extended existence. Among other obstacles to shuttering the
detention center, Congress has instituted a ban on detainee
transfers to the US mainland.

In January, Republican US senators proposed legislation that
seeks a two-year moratorium on the release of "medium- and
high-risk detainees" held at Gitmo. In addition, the
legislation would also bar the transfer of any detainees to Yemen
for two years.

“The last thing we should be doing is transferring detainees
from Guantanamo to a country like Yemen," Sen. Kelly Ayotte
said.

The provision regarding Yemen – where 76 Gitmo detainees are
from, more than any other single group at the facility – was
justified, the senators said, by the January attacks in Paris –
most notably the assault on the offices of French satirical
newspaper Charlie Hebdo. One of the two brothers who executed the
attack had sought weapons training in Yemen in 2011, according to
French authorities.

The US has long avoided sending Yemenis back to their home
nation, citing security concerns and fears that some would escape
prison there or be set free by the Yemeni government. Yemenis
that have been set free are sent to accepting third-party
nations.

Urging for tougher laws to define and ban torture, the UN
Committee Against Torture has previously called on Washington to
reevaluate the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.

“The Committee is particularly disturbed at reports
describing a draconian system of secrecy surrounding high-value
detainees that keeps their torture claims out of the public
domain,” the committee wrote in
November.

According to
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, many of the
detainees at Guantanamo were reportedly handed over to US forces
by bounty hunters in Pakistan and Afghanistan, after the US
distributed flyers in these countries offering substantial
monetary awards for turning in "suspicious" people.
Others were linked to relatives or acquaintances suspected of
criminal activity, and were therefore considered
"guilty" by association.

The majority of detainees remaining at Gitmo have been cleared
for release, but remain there due to political or diplomatic
obstacles in repatriating them.

Another 30-some prisoners have been designated for continued
detention without trial. These are men considered by the US as
too dangerous to release, yet against whom the government lacks
usable evidence for a conviction.

Even less than that have been referred for prosecution through
the Pentagon’s highly-secretive military commission system. Those
detainees include Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, who are accused of
orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks. The oft-delayed
case is still in pretrial hearings. The men were arraigned in May
2012 and charged with 2,973 counts of murder and other
terror-related charges.

Two
weeks ago, a military judge put the 9/11 trial on hold until
the Department of Defense walks back an order requiring the
judges presiding over the case to move to Guantanamo Bay in order
to proceed with the trial.

In early
February, the case was put on hold again after two 9/11 trial
defendants said during a pre-trial proceeding -- the first
hearing in six months -- that they objected to the
English-to-Arabic translator supplied them, as they recognized
the man from one of the CIA’s black sites, where many detainees
were quietly rendered before ending up at Gitmo.

“My client relayed to me this morning that there is somebody
in this courtroom who was participating in his illegal
torture,” attorney Cheryl Bormann told Army told Col. James
L. Pohl, who is presiding over the case.